


Barcelona

by veryveryverytemporarily



Category: Emmerdale, robron
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Family, M/M, teen robert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-07-29 10:51:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16262699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryveryverytemporarily/pseuds/veryveryverytemporarily
Summary: Robert insists on taking Aaron to Barcelona before the wedding. He shares some difficult memories from his stay as a teen after Sarah’s death, and takes Aaron to meet someone special.





	1. Sacred Family

They’d both known in the taxi from the airport how it would go, Robert’s elbow crooked over the beaded cover on the passenger seat, his arm hanging down, the back of his fingers tapping against Aaron’s knees.

Within minutes of stepping through the door into the hotel room, they’d made love, or rather, call it what it was, they had sex, a touch rough, but it harked back to them, to the way they were so good together.

It was alright being parents and parent brother guardian whatevers, it was more than alright, and they were happy, but they missed this.

 _\- they –_ there was just a heartbeat of a moment when Aaron opened his mouth to remind Robert, _hey, I’m here, too…_ And then Robert had raised his eyes, looked at him like he was the center of the universe, and he knew he was an idiot, that he could never doubt it.

After, they lay motionless on the white vastness of the bed.

Robert cleared his throat, finding his lower register vocal cords that he’d abandoned for a while back there in favor of moans - the kind of drawn out moans that made Aaron worry about coming too soon - coming before the bit where Robert’s eyelashes flicker like a light bulb in a power surge, and he swallows back breath like he’s catching ghosts.

Now, he let his eyes trace over Robert’s face; his husband to-be again, official-to-be this time. Took in his freckles, made a note to self to remind him to use sun block; thought, not for the first time, that they should have come later in autumn or next spring even, but Robert had wanted now. It had seemed, somehow, important.

Robert rubbed his cheek against the sheet looking back at him.

‘Admit it, then; this was a good idea,’ his voice still had that low gravel that got to him.

‘Well we could have just gone to, I dunno, Skipton, or somewhere, if this is why we came.’

‘You’re joking?’ Even with half of Robert’s face squashed against the bed, he managed to raise an eyebrow. ‘This is Barcelona!’

‘ _This_ is a hotel bedroom. We could be anywhere.’

‘We’ve only just got here!’

‘I know.’

‘I can’t believe you’re complaining already! Come on, then, get up! I’ll show you around.’

‘You get up.’

Neither of them moved.

Aaron could see Robert’s hand had slipped back down to his cock, tried to disguise his smile with a yawn.

‘At least tell me you’re glad you came.’

‘Well, maybe I need to come again first, just to be sure.’

He reached for his wrist, redirecting his hand towards his mouth, then flickered his tongue over his long middle finger taking his time, nodding at him as he released it again as if to say - _go on, you know what I want you to do with it_.

So, Robert made sure that he was glad, until later that evening, when everything went pear shaped. Which all started with the waiter.

 

They’d been in the Woolie for lunch when Robert had first brought up the suggestion of a mini break to Barcelona. Except it wasn’t the first time, Aaron recalled later – he’d got them tickets after Gordon’s trial and they hadn’t gone because of Liv. Even then he must have had the same reasons for wanting to go.

Neither of them was good at talking about stuff, so this wasn’t talking, it was showing, like when Seb banged a toy against your arm, looking in your eyes.

He later realized, it was a declaration of love, an acknowledgement of how they would be together hereinafter. It was Robert letting Aaron in.

‘There are beaches, and bars,’ hands on hips, Robert had scanned the interior of the pub, ‘… we can play darts.’

_‘Darts?’_

Aaron had lowered Seb into the baby seat, fastening the harness, checking it for tightness. He’d opened a plastic box with spirals of macaroni while Seb looked up at his face questioningly. He stretched his eyes with encouragement.

‘Have you got something against Barcelona? Because it seems like every time I suggest it, you find an excuse not to go! You were happy enough swanning off to Ibiza with Liv.’

‘Malta.’

‘That’s not the point!’         

Seb coughed, spat out a chunk of pasta, eyes blinking. Aaron fished in the baby bag holdall for a wet wipe.

‘How about if we leave it until after the wedding? I thought we were saving up,’   he grimaced – saving up - knew deep down Robert hated the words since he’d become an employee, ‘… for a honeymoon,’ he added, driving home the point.

‘Well then, think of it as practice run.’

It sounded flirty. It was meant to. But when Aaron looked up, Robert had already turned away. He watched him with a frown as he moved over to the bar to buy drinks, and when he came back, Jimmy and Nicola joined them, so the subject was dropped.

Before bed, they’d just stepped out of the shower, his body still high and relaxed by the sex, and Robert whipped a towel around both of them, sealing them in together, his lips against his shoulder so he couldn’t see his eyes.

‘So, are we going?’

‘Where?’

‘To Barcelona.’

‘Suppose so.’

‘I knew you’d say yes, I already got the tickets.’

And Aaron had touched his fingers to the back of Robert’s hair where the shower water had plastered it to his neck, wondering what was so important.

 

It was the waiter that had started it.

They’d both looked, and then they’d both noticed each other looking, the kind of looking that has no feeling behind it, but he’d had this momentary twinge of jealously even so.

‘That why you stayed so long here when you were a teenager? After the Spanish lads?’

‘Catalan, not Spanish, and no, I was a bit young to be going on Grindr back then,’ Robert snapped back.

‘Wha...? Well I should think not! I don’t think it even existed back then,’ Aaron objected. ‘So why did you stay so long?’

‘My mum had died, and when I wanted to get away, my dad got me a one-way ticket. It wasn’t exactly a holiday, happy now?’  

‘Sorry, I ...’

‘Why are you sorry?’  Robert shook his head, already scraping back his chair on the pavement, and then he’d taken off.

He caught him up leaning on a railing overlooking the harbor, slipped an arm around his waist and waited. Eventually Robert darted his eyes sideways at him.

‘Sorry, I didn’t bring you here for this, I brought you here to make new memories. Good ones.’

He could feel the tension in his back, stroked his thumb against Robert’s side through his white summer shirt. Whatever Robert said, this was why they’d come. He saw that now.

‘You never really told me about it.’

There was a bench just behind them and Aaron steered them back until they sat. The night air was warm, in front of them the ink dark sea, from the distance the muffled sound of music from the harbor restaurants.

‘You already know.’

‘Not really. But I’d like to, if you want to tell me.’

 

The plane landed, the Mediterranean sun bouncing off the runway tarmac.

He queued at immigration with a travel bag chaffing over his shoulder, discarded denim jacket hooked through a finger. He showed them the letter from his Dad, gave them Annie’s phone number if they wanted proof that he hadn’t just run away or something, frowning to catch the gist of what they were saying through their heavy accents as they questioned him.

He was fifteen.

 _The purpose of his visit?_ What could he have told them? That he’d lost his mother in a fire? His dad had gone to prison. There’d been secrets he wasn’t a party to, until he’d found out the truth? That he needed to get away? He imagined just blurting it out, the officers open-mouthed staring back at him, while Latin music played quietly in the background.

‘I’ve come to stay with me Gran, grandmother…, sorry? Yeah, _grandmother_. On holiday - _Ho-li-day_.’

‘Terrible business,’ Annie said, robustly. She’d picked him up in an ancient Ford Granada, still driving well into her late seventies. ‘Hard for Victoria, but your Dad will take care of her, she’s the apple of his eye,’ she went on, ‘At least you were too young to know anything when Pat died.’

 _She was my mum, too! –_ he remembered Andy saying those exact same words, closed his lips tightly, looking out at the unfamiliar landscape through the car window flecked with mud. He tried to wind it down. The handle turned but nothing happened.

‘Stuck,’ Annie said. He’d forgotten she had eyes everywhere; it was good, helped him learn to hide things.

‘Your father will carry on, like he always has. But, this, on top of all the financial worries. I told him to sell up years ago, but it’s in his blood. None of this would have happened - falling out with Sarah to begin with, her going off with that bloke, then the fire - you can trace it all back to money in the end.’

They crossed a junction, the gear sticking as Annie shifted down and back up again, Robert wishing he could be the one driving, thinking he’d do a better job.

‘Surprised Andy didn’t come with you. Expect your Dad wanted him on the farm?’ 

The road verges were covered in dry earth and weeds, beyond them scrub covered mountains rose under a radiant sky.

At school, at the beginning of the year they’d started reading _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ and Mum had found him Hemmingway’s dispatches from the Spanish civil war from the library, not that he’d been to school much, first having to help Dad out at the farm, and then, well, everything else.

He remembered being in the kitchen before she left with Richie for good, reading aloud to her.

 _‘_ _Above us, in the high cloudless sky, fleet after fleet of bombers roared over Tortosa.’_

_His Dad in the yard reversing the jeep, Andy climbing out of the passenger seat._

_'When they dropped the sudden thunder of their loads, the little city on the Ebro disappeared in a yellow mounting cloud of dust. The dust never settled…,’_

_Mum’s involved expression as she listened, following the words over his shoulder._

_Then the door opening as they came in, and he’d closed the book._

‘Where’s Tortosa?’ he asked Annie, fingers splayed on the streaked window.

‘Where?’

 

‘Spot of home cooking? Eh, lad?’

Amos had made cottage pie.

After he ate he felt exhausted, excused himself.

In the hall at the bottom of the stairway he hesitated, there was a framed photograph of all of them; Dad, Mum, Vic, him, and Andy. Mum’s eyes - if he could go back he’d turn his face, plant a kiss on her cheek.

He picked the photo up. From the kitchen he could hear Amos talking to his Gran.

‘He’s quiet, your young ‘un, not surprising like.’

‘He’ll be alright. He’s a Sugden. We don’t do self-pity.’

He took the photograph up to his room, took it out of the frame and looked at it again.

He started to tear around Sarah until she was outlined by a white halo of ragged polaroid paper. Then he tore around Vic. He put them in the bedside drawer.

He opened his travel bag to get out his toothbrush. When he came back from the bathroom, he picked up the remains of the photo from where it still rested on the bed cover, the three of them, ripped through the middle when he extracted Sarah. He flicked his wrist, tossed it in the wastepaper bin, launched himself backwards onto the bed.

The strangeness of the room helped him sleep better than he’d done for days.

 

Like all the other villas on the street where Annie and Amos lived, there was a swimming pool in the yard at the back. It was empty.

He stared out blankly while he ate breakfast, looking but not seeing the blue tiles on Gaudi-esque sandstone walls surrounding raised lavender beds. Pink flowers from the oleander plants had broken off and drifted into the bottom of the pool where they lay rotting amid dust and dirt.

‘Let’s get someone in to see to it. It needs a professional with one of them robots and getting the pH right. It’s been years.’ Amos said.

It never got done.

Instead he swam in the sea.

Walking out of cold waves with spring winds making him shiver as he picked up his towel and dried himself off on an empty beach during May, June. The locals wouldn’t swim until the temperature hit thirty at least once, they watched him suspiciously.

He glowered back at them; brown curls and freckled faces everywhere made him think of Andy. He refused to miss him.

At times the rage would wash over him higher than the morning tide, and when it subsided he was dragged into a different shape like the beach.

 

‘You were still grieving for your mum.’

‘No.’ Robert shook his head. ‘That was the whole thing. I never did grieve, not the months before I came to Spain, and then, while I was here I did everything possible to avoid even thinking about it. Maybe if I had, things would have turned out differently. I would have turned out differently, instead of, well, you know better than anyone…’

‘It’s not your fault. You were just a kid.’

‘But I could have made better choices, my Gran was of the old school - less said soonest mended, she’d say, ‘It’s a queer world,’ not our sort of queer obviously, and then just, change the subject.

Aaron swallowed trying to keep up. For a moment all he could hear in his head was Robert saying _not our sort of queer,_ a wave of love washing over him. But Robert was already on with his account.

‘Funnily enough it was Amos who tried at first. And you can imagine how that went.’

Robert put on a fake manly accent.

_‘Your mother…, I weren’t around much, but she seemed like a bright lass, a breath of fresh air - You must miss her, son?’_

_‘You didn’t know her.’_

_‘Well no, but…’_

_‘So why are we even talking about it?’_

‘Anyway, I found other ways of distracting myself.’

 

‘Where’ve you been, lad? Up an’ out so early?’  

‘Just a walk.’

‘Your Dad called again, he wants to talk to you.’

‘I’ll speak to him later, yeah, Gran?’

Estel, the paid help, was washing up. He spoke over his shoulder as he reached for the box of cornflakes, his attention caught by her muscular thighs under cropped denim shorts.

He knew she cycled there, knew each time she was round from the bike leaning against the whitewashed passage at the side of the drive under a spreading grape vine.

He watched her surreptitiously as he ate, she was around thirty maybe, he could see the leopard pattern of her bra through her spaghetti strapped t-shirt.

After breakfast he held that thought, went to his bedroom, found his routine position and slipped his hand into his underpants, pictured Estel taking off her top, unfastening her bra, her full breasts, the points of her nipples, and came with lights erupting behind his eye-lids.

It became a regular thing, two, three, if it rained, more times a day. It was when he felt best, his mind emptied and if he was lucky, the fleeting relief that gushed through his body sometimes lasted long enough to get him to sleep.

Once there was a knock, and the door opened, and Estel was there, presumably wanting to clean, he looked back at her twisting his neck while they held each other’s eyes.

‘Sorry, I thought you are outside.’

His wrist covering his cock.

‘Well, I’m not.’

The door already shut, he closed his eyes, and got on with it.

But sometimes the lad who’d worked on the farm would pop up in head just as he was getting close, the sharp scent of his skin under his nose, the knots of muscle between his ribs when he’d pulled up his shirt, and he’d take his hand away, bounce up and pace the room, running a hand through his hair.

And the lad and Andy would morph into one in his head, driving hm downstairs and out into the street where no one spoke his language.

 

‘Your Gran, she must have noticed, though, that you were struggling?’

‘Wha…the devil finds work for idle hands, you mean?’

‘Your hands have never been idle, anyway.’

‘Not known you to complain about it.’

‘Anyway, not that, obviously, I mean, just in general. She must have been worried about you.’

‘Probably. She took me to church.’

‘Was she religious?’

‘I think she’s of the generation that think religion is a comfort. She’d sing _Guide me o thou Great Redeemer_ in the car. I can give you a rendition if you like?’

‘Err, no thanks!’

‘You’re such a heathen, Aaron Dingle. Shall we just go back to the hotel?’

Robert angled for a kiss, and Aaron let him, pressing his lips gently back against his mouth but keeping a restraining hand against his chest.

‘Shh! wait! Tell me about this church first, and then we’ll go back, alright?’

 

‘Oi! Stay away from that drinks cabinet!’

‘I haven’t been anywhere near it! Come on, Gran! You know me better than that!’

He watered the Gin de Manorca until it wasn’t fit to drink, laced cans of cola with rum. There was an unopened bottle of vermouth which he swiped in its entirety. He discovered on his way back from the beach one day that the smaller shops were less conscientious about selling alcohol to underage customers, or maybe they didn’t know - he was already tall for his age and even though he was slender, his limbs had grown and his shoulders spread, and he flirted with the girls behind the counter, creasing his eyes in a smile while they questioned him about being   _‘un noi anglès.’_

Rounding the corner, he would wrap his towel around bottles of cheap sweet wine and once through the door, take them up to his room.

They never noticed: they didn’t get physically close enough to smell the alcohol, or to look into his eyes, and he didn’t hang around, just down for meals and then gone.

 

The day they announced the trip to the Sagrada Familia at breakfast, he was already half wasted, and while they were out of the room getting ready, he poured Orujo, the Spanish firewater, into a water bottle and screwed on the plastic lid.

They traveled in convoy with neighbors.

Robert sat on the back seat with the bottle in his hand resting between his open thighs. When they got there, they parked up both cars side by side in a pay and display lot, then walked the remaining distance.

Amos and Annie found somewhere to sit and wait while the neighbors queued for tickets, and Robert, standing apart, raised his eyes to the church, and the bottle to his lips.

Great conical towers topped with starbursts rose up into the sky, resting on splayed columns, as if the building were alive and had transported from somewhere distant, planting itself in the ground, clinging on while the world spun in its orbit.  

He’d seen an illustration, not from Death Note, he was trying to remember where, when the neighbor approached waving the tickets.

‘Impressive, isn’t it? If you look closely you can see how each side of the building represents Christ’s journey, his birth, suffering and death, and the eternal bliss that comes after the resurrection.’

‘I think you’re confusing me with someone who cares.’

He saw the flustered look on the neighbor’s face, swiveled away. He took another gulp of Orujo, looked down as it splashed from his mouth onto his T-shirt, and followed them at a distance into the church.

Inside it was cool and crowded. The carvings a sensory overload.

He wandered away and sat down, rolling his eyes at a statue of holy mother and child. He could hear a tour guide, in spite of himself picking up their narrative.

_‘So, this is the crypt, in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War anarchists broke in and set fire to it, precious elements of the construction were lost.’_

_Fire!_

He managed to stand up, reaching out a hand for support, the church spinning. The inscription on the tombstone in front of him came in and out of focus.

‘It’s in Latin.’

It was the neighbor at his shoulder again.

 _‘Antonius Gaudi Cornet, -_ _a man of exemplary life, died piously in Barcelona, the ashes of so great a man await the resurrection of the dead. May he rest in peace.’_

Robert swayed, his breathing coming thickly through his nose.

‘I heard your step-mother died in tragic circumstances.’

Robert slowly raised a hand to the neighbor’s shoulder, watching his fingers as they curled into the man’s summer jacket.  Gradually he leaned forwards, until his head rested sideways against his chest, and he could feel the thud, thud of the neighbor’s heart.

Startled, the man stiffened, then placed a hand around his back.

Robert raised his mouth near to his ear, opened his mouth to speak.

‘Batman!’ he whispered.

‘Sorry?’

Robert stepped back, opening his hands.

‘Batman! Dragon’s Knight? _Batman in Barcelona_? It’s a classic. It’s where I know this place from. I couldn’t remember but there’s this reptile in the story and you, you reminded me of him. You really ought to read it.’

He was laughing now, and then spread his arms, opening his eyes wide.

 _‘I am vengeance, I am the night, I am Batman!’_ he called loudly.

Between his fingers and thumb he rattled a set of keys. The neighbor’s car keys. He’d just fished them out of the bloke’s jacket pocket.

He turned on his heels, bumping into gawping tourists, and headed out of the church.

The street lurched around him as he retraced the route to the car lot under the scorching sunlight, vaguely aware of being followed.

When he reached the lot he quickly identified the neighbor’s Mercedes and fumbled with the unlock button, wrestled with the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. He placed the key in the ignition and put the car in reverse, elbow over the seat, looking back over his shoulder.

He pressed down too hard on the accelerator and the car raced backwards. Through the rear window he saw the neighbors and Amos rushing towards him, and then his grandmother, Annie, pushing between them to the front.

He slammed down on the brake. His Gran stood, arms folded, looking back at him. He swallowed, shaking his head, and pushed the gear back into first, then pressed down on the accelerator again, and drove straight into the wall.

 

‘God! Were you hurt?’

‘Just my ego. The alcohol saved me from worse, can’t say the same about the car.’

‘So, what happened?’

‘Nothing. Well, except that I threw my guts up. Can’t even remember what I’d eaten, but it was pretty bad. Started out projectile, went everywhere, the dashboard, even the roof, and then it just kept on coming, like oatmeal, straight into my lap.’

‘You are so gross, you know that?’

‘I know, but can we go back to the hotel now? You promised.’

 

Amos manhandling him fully dressed into the shower, turning on the water, while Robert waited, then as Amos reached for him, he cowered, raising his hands in self-defense, saw the startled look on the old man’s face.

‘What? Surely you don’t think I’m gonna hurt you, lad?’

Resting against his forearms on the cold tiles as the streaming water flattened his hair and soaked into his clothes, sobbing over and over, ‘I don’t deserve this, I don’t deserve this.’

Annie in the bedroom trying to find clean pajamas, opened the drawers and found his stash of empty bottles and porn magazines.

‘We can’t be doing with this at our age. Your Dad will have to deal with you, now.’

Robert, bleating, while Amos rubbed him down with a towel.

‘No! Don’t send me back, don’t send me back! I’ve only got you, Gran, I’ve only got you!’

They’d bundled him still half damp into pajamas and steered him into bed, his eyes scrunched tight as he lay back on the pillow, his breathing labored.

He could hear every movement as they shuffled about, putting his clothes into a bin bag, washing down the shower tray, a pint glass of water and a plastic bowl by the bed in case he started throwing up again in the night. And then Amos’s quiet voice.

‘You don’t think Jack’s laid hands on ‘im, do you?’

‘Jack? Don’t talk daft.’

He blinked his eyes open, saw his Gran looking down at him.

For a moment their eyes met.

‘Go to sleep, Robert.’

 

‘I’m sorry, today wasn’t up to much, but I’ll make tomorrow better, I promise.’

‘Why do you think we’re here? Or anywhere for that matter? I want to be here because of y…’

Robert kissed him before he could finish the sentence.


	2. Earthing Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the names are a bit confusing all beginning with A, but once I'd started I couldn't bring myself to change it, and in a strange way with the overkill on symbolism in this fic I thought it worked lmao

Robert slept fitfully that night, waking Aaron twice, three times, kicking out, something he hadn’t done since way back, when they were still sneaking around for sex in hotel rooms, pretending not to be in love.

‘Rob! Robert! Just lie on your other side, will ya?’

‘Sorry? Was I snoring?’

‘No, you were probably dreaming.’

He managed to nudge him over, slipped a hand around his front, holding him flush against his chest, and when Robert’s breathing deepened, finally he slept.

 

In the morning, they snapped at each other over breakfast, and instead of sightseeing, they took the safer option, and went to the beach.

Lying down on towels, drinking iced beers even though it was early, Aaron grumbling about sand sticking to the neck of the bottle. He balled up saliva and spat discreetly to get rid of it from inside his mouth, while Robert looked skywards, cracking the spine of his book.

Aaron fidgeted, trying to mold the sand under him to the contours of his body.

Hidden behind his sunglasses, he let his eyes linger on the swell of Robert’s pecs, how his nipples had turned darker pink in the sun, cream tipped with melting factor 50.

He put his lips around the beer bottle, thinking about foreplay, then trying not to think about it.

Further up the beach some teenage lads were playing football, and his mind switched to Seb, all the love and security that they’d give him growing up, that they hadn’t had. He thought about Robert, aged fifteen, what he’d been through losing his Mum. and how the night before he’d opened up about it. But then he’d still slept badly.

He blew absently over the rim of the bottle, and Robert flew up onto his elbows, tight-lipped.

‘This isn’t working! Let’s go back.’

Back at the hotel, they stripped out of damp swimming shorts, mouths tasting of beer and salt. Robert’s skin was sun-warm from the beach. They clambered together onto the bed, a tug on his forearm, and Robert was climbing over his lap.

Aaron could see the glitter of sand in his armpits as he reached forwards. He tilted his hips, the weight of Robert and gravity bringing them together. Then he was thrusting straight up and back out to his tip, Robert’s cock penetrating the circle of his finger and thumb, while music, and the sound of lunch being served filtered in through the open balcony door where they should have hung their beach towels in the sun.

‘Better now?’ Robert asked after, stretching across the bed for the phone. Aaron watched him silently, wiping down his stomach with a flannel. When he heard Robert order room service, he finally let himself smile, and Robert winked back, ‘You will be when you’ve eaten something.’

‘Don’t put this on me! You’re the insomniac who kept us both awake!’

Robert looked contrite.

And then room service arrived with a tray, and they dressed in clean t-shirts and loose shorts, and sat on the sofa to eat, wolfing down burgers and chips.

‘What did your Gran do, then? Did she send you back?’

‘No. She devised a suitable punishment.’

‘What? Boot camp?’

‘Worse – She made me plant potatoes.’

 

It was a late crop. He should have known his Gran would have bought land, half of it already cultivated with greenhouses of tomatoes, beans and peppers. The other half must have lain fallow for a good while because it was hard as stone, yellow dust rising like smoke as he struck it with a spade.

It was more than a plot, it was a fucking field. He’d never missed a tractor in his life. Until now.

‘Your dad should’ve sent Andy, he’d have made light work of it.’

After a whole day he’d turned the earth on less than a third of the area, his shoulders aching and his palms already leaking clear liquid from burst blisters.

The next day the work proceeded even more slowly, maybe it was the scale of the thing, but also boredom had set in. There had to be a way out.

From the wheel of her car, Annie surveyed the half-dug field.

‘So, you’re a quitter now, are you?’ she said before driving off.

Mid-afternoon found him lying on his back, with his head half under the wheelbarrow in the shade of almond trees at the side of the plot, rolling an empty three-liter plastic bottle of water under his palm, listening to the hollow noise it made.

Dirt under his nails, in his hair, in the creases of his eyelids, as if the earth was already laying claim to him.

The seedy hiss of slowing bicycle wheels and a shower of grit made him open his eyes.

There was a lad, fingers wrapped around handle bars, looking down at him. He had thick black eyebrows that looked like two brush strokes of Arabic script, and skin like smoked copper. The dislike was instant and intense.

‘Señora Brearly, she aks me to bring you these.’ The boy raised sinewy arms, extracting a back-pack from his bare shoulders, tongue between white teeth as he opened the zip, balancing on the tips of feet in the soil either side of the bike.

He pulled out the contents of the bag, leaning over to lay them on the ground one at a time, with a running commentary for each item, _‘… this, and this, and this, and prego!’_

Robert surveyed a fresh bottle of water, a bottle of orange juice, a wrapped packet of freshly made sandwiches.

He squinted back up at the lad, waiting for him to leave. Instead, frowning, the boy scanned the plot.

‘You not so good at this, no?’

Robert scowled. Sitting up he pulled the grease proof paper package towards him and unwrapped it. He looked between the slices of white bread leaking cheese and mustard pickle, then raised a sandwich to his mouth. The lad wet his lips.

Was he petty enough to eat in front of this stranger? He bit and chewed slowly. Yes, he was.

On the other hand, … he pushed the stack of remaining sandwiches forward.

‘Want one?’

And with a ‘gracias,’ the lad climbed off his bike, letting it fall sideways on the earth, hunkered down beside him on gleaming thighs, and started to eat.

When the last sandwich was gone, Robert reached behind him in the back pocket of his jean shorts, and pulled out a bunch of peseta notes - his allowance from Jack that Annie handed him every week.

‘Want to earn some money?’

The boy’s black eyebrows knotted, and he inspected the field one more time.

‘Sure, I help you, but I no want your money. And my name Is Arnau, by the way. You can call me Arnie.’

 

Turned out Arnie was more than just a handsome face. He was strong too, older than Robert, his body already thickening into manhood.

They worked backs bent over the next couple of days, loosening the baked soil, removing stones and debris, and then back to the start adding wheelbarrows of manure and handfuls of fertilizer, mixing it in with a fork. When it was time to take a break, Robert wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist and called, ‘Give it a rest, Andy!’

‘Who is Andy?’

‘No-one.’

They sat under the trees, and ate in silence.

 

‘Did you like him?’

‘Who?’

‘This lad, Arnau - Arnie?’

‘Oh, No. I don’t know - even if I did I wouldn’t have admitted it to myself. Not after, well, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘He was gay, though. We were walking to the field one morning, and I made some remark about some girls we passed, and he just came out with it.’

_‘Maybe I tell you? I gay.’_

_‘That’s your business, I suppose.’_

_‘Is okay, but sometimes in Espanya can be difficult, no?’_

_‘I’m sorry if that’s the case.’_

_‘Never mind, I get used.’_

 

With the land ready, they planted the potatoes, unraveling string and fixing pegs in the earth, drawing up the trenches. They lifted the sacks of seedling potatoes into a wheelbarrow, and then, as Robert placed each embryo firmly in the ground a foot apart, Arnie pushed the earth over them. And it was done.

Back home, five o’clock sharp, Robert came down the stairs, limbs protesting, hair still damp from the shower. In the kitchen Estel was just leaving, while Annie, in oven gloves, pulled out tea from the oven and put it on the table.

Next to his place setting was a package. Robert pulled up his chair with a frown and picked it up.

‘For you, on one condition – that you call your Dad!’

He opened it, inside a red Nokia 3310, state of the art.

 

‘So, I called him and spoke to him, and he said he loved me and he missed me, and I told him I loved him, too - He was my dad.’

‘Course.’

 

 

He hadn’t expected to see Arnie again, and then a couple of days later, there’d been a knock on the front door when Robert had been passing at the foot of the stairs, and his Gran had answered and there he was.

He hung out, eating meals at the kitchen table, chatting with Estel, sitting in the garden drinking tea with Annie. When he found a comic Robert had been reading, he picked it up, asked about it, and Robert waited until he put it down again, then took it up to his room.

Amos had an old darts board that Robert reckoned he’d lifted from the days when he was landlord at the Woolpack, he nailed it up in the garage, and Arnie played alone, following Robert with his eyes through the open door when he turned into the drive on the way back from the beach.

At tea-time one day, Arnie asked about the swimming pool, said he knew a friend with a machine, offered to clean it out.

Robert retreated more and more to his room. He wanted to lash out, but he was worried his Gran would just send him back. Once on his way downstairs he met Arnie looking up, pushed past him.

‘Stop following me like a stray dog!’

He started to panic. It was like history repeating itself.

And then one day Arnau turned up with a bruised eye and bloodied lip. Robert hovered at the kitchen door as his gran tutted, cleaning him up with cotton wool and antiseptic.

He wanted to gloat, but hadn’t wanted it like this. Not that he cared, but his curiosity was piqued, and then it wasn’t what he expected at all.

‘There were three of them, I can take care of myself, like Jose Gironés - here.’

He pulled out a wallet and took out a magazine clipping, a black and white photograph of a young man, hair greased back, fists raised - a fighter.

‘Is a Catalan boxer, a hero, was one of the best in the world, then after the war they forced him to go to Mexico, and after, no more boxing in España, because they know we Catalan are strong, they no want.’

‘You need to report whoever did this to the police,’ Annie said, ignoring the picture.

‘Is no good, Señora Brearly, this tribal - Spanish boys did this because I Catalan, the police they no want trouble.’

After, Robert waited in the garage, watching the line where the shadow ended and the sunshine began on the driveway.

When Arnie came out, Robert picked up the darts and took aim. He didn’t turn around, but he knew the moment the lad grew level with his shoulder. Pulling the darts off the board, he handed them over.

And with his trademark smile breaking through his bruised mouth, Arnie started to play.

And if Arnie’s eyes lingered on his profile when it was Robert’s turn, he chose not to notice, instead steering the conversation to the Spanish Civil War, to Cataluña, listening as Arnie grew more and more passionate in his replies.

 

‘So, you did like him? Something happened between you, then?’ Aaron rested his head back against the sofa, arms folded around his warm chest.

Robert leaned over, pressed his lips against the curve of his bicep with a smile.

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Well, he liked you then.’

‘Yeah, cos obviously I’m a gay magnet.’

‘Shut up. Anyway, go on, what happened next?’

‘We took a trip.’

 

His Gran let them take the Ford, they were underage, but she was used to farming where youngsters needed to drive on vast tracks of private land, so to Robert’s amazement, she was alright about it.

Before they left, Arnie fixed the stuck window, and then they set off driving out of the city, along the highway beside the sea, thrown up into white off-shore breakers in the breeze.

Robert’s fingers splayed on the dashboard, peering up through the windscreen at the blue road signs with names of Catalan cities and towns, until he finally saw what he was looking for - T o r t o s a.  

Just over half way, they changed over, shaking out t-shirts that had stuck to their skin with sweat while they walked round the car, Robert taking his Nokia out of his shorts pocket and placing it on the shelf behind the gear stick, pushing the seat back a notch or two, and then it was his turn to drive.

He didn’t need Arnie to tell him which way to go when they came to the junction, he’d already seen the sign. Turning the car right, they left the coast behind and started the ascent into the hills. And in a short while, they’d arrived.

‘It’s just another city, it could be anywhere!’

Robert’s eyes searched the modern city, shopping malls and shining civic buildings, a stately bridge over the gleaming Ebro river. It wasn’t what he’d expected, what he’d pictured, at all.

‘No, no, Roberto, paciencia!’

Arnie with a hand patting Robert’s arm, angling out of the window, squinting in the sunlight, and calling to a passer-by.

‘Disculpa’m, quin és el camí a Corbera?’ 

And then he gestured to Robert, with a ‘turn here, si, si, here.’ And Rob was spinning the wheel and soon they were leaving the city behind them once more, climbing the green Catalan mountains.

Under a high cloudless sky, they found the ruins of the old town of Corbera. *

 

It was a quiet place, except for the breeze in the almond trees.

There were quite a few visitors. Robert watched them walk with arms linked, winding their way between the fallen stone walls, where the marks of machine guns were still visible, lost homes pounded to dust.

Arnie pointed out memorial inscriptions until they both sat.

‘After the war ended they decided not to build here again, so people can remember. And then after Franco die, there came democracy, and then a pact of forgetting, no one can talk because new nation, new beginning, no looking back. But some people still they very sad. They no can find their dead families, no can bury them, no remember them. Then a few years ago a new law passed in Espanya, a law of remembering - some people happy, some say not enough. Some people they still very angry - they want - how you say? Justice or La Venjanca, eh, _Revenge_.’

Robert looked at him sharply.

‘And you? Is that what you want?’

Arnie’s dark eyebrows lifted.

‘Me? I don’t know. This place - is about peace.’

And then he shifted, breaking into a smile.

‘I think maybe you really Catalan, si? Not your grandmother,’ he laughed. ‘Perhaps your mother, no?’

‘Roberto! Robert! What? What is it?’

_‘It’s a stupid book!’_

_‘Books aren’t stupid, what is it?’_

_His Mum frowned, watching as he crammed it back into his school bag. Her face was pale, it seemed so long since he’d seen her really happy._

_‘For the Whom the Bell Tolls.’_

_‘Hemmingway? That’s quite a grown-up book. He was, how shall I put it, a complex man.’_

_He rolled his eyes._

_‘How?’_

_‘All ego and bravado on the outside, boxing and bullfights, but perhaps different and rather sad on the inside?’_

_‘Different how?’_

_‘I think you’re a bit young, and anyway, it’s only theories based on what he wrote.’_

_‘What sort of theories?’_

_‘Stuff about his sexuality,’ she said tentatively._

_There was a silence that lasted too long, until she rescued it._

_‘The book’s set in the Spanish Civil War, he was a journalist there. Give it a try, you might even like it. I can read aloud to you, if you want?’_

_‘I’m not a kid anymore. Don’t treat me like one! Alright? I don’t want to read it.’_

_‘Where are you going? I can’t stay long…’_

_‘I’ve got math homework.’_

_‘Did you get to school this week? Good! Look what I found at the library; Hemmingway’s dispatches from the Spanish Civil War. What’s that face? Come on! At least give it a read. Read it to me, while I fold these,’ she gestured to the stack of laundry, mostly Vic’s, the open suitcase._

_He swallowed._

_‘Can’t I come with you?’_

_‘You know the answer to that, Robert.’_

_‘Only there’s stuff I want to t…,’ he paused, raising a hand to his mouth, looking down._

_‘What? School stuff?’_

_He shook his head._

_‘Look, your dad loves you, and he has a lot on his mind with the farm right now. When things get better I’m sure he’ll let you come and stay, we’ll make it a regular thing. Just give it some time? Time Robert, that’s all we need.’ She put a hand out to his cheek. ‘Now read to me! You can start there.’ She opened the book and pointed to the page._

_‘_ _Above us, in the high cloudless sky, fleet after fleet of bombers roared over Tortosa,’ he started. Then coughed._

_His Dad in the yard reversing the jeep, Andy climbing out of the passenger seat._

_‘When they dropped the sudden thunder of their loads, the little city on the Ebro disappeared in a yellow mounting cloud of dust. The dust never settled…,’_

_Mum’s involved expression as she listened, still folding clothes, putting them in the suitcase, following the words over his shoulder._

_Then the door opening as they came in, and he’d closed the book._

 

Arnie’s voice, his hand shaking his shoulder. The words running around and around in his head, since before he’d come to Barcelona, and every day, every minute ever since he’d found out.

He raised his eyes.

‘ _There’s no other country in the world like Spain -_ It’s what Hemmingway wrote,’ he started, Arnie still watching his face, brows knotted with a question he hadn’t answered yet - he realized he was shaking – he nodded, closing his eyes, because he knew he was going to say it at last, that there was no stopping the words now.

‘My brother killed my mum!’ It was barely a whisper, and then he said it again more clearly, watching the wind whip up the dust at their feet. ‘My brother killed my mum!’

Arnie looked back at him, blinking, then reached for him, until Robert’s head rested against his chest, his fingers curled into his t-shirt, listening to the thud, thud of his heart.

 

Now it was Aaron’s turn to cry.

‘Shhh! You idiot! Come here! It was all a long time ago, and it’s over now.’

He scooted closer, enveloping Aaron in the heat of his arms, holding him tight.

‘You never told me!’

‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to blame Andy. It wasn’t his fault, but it took me a long time to see it.’

Aaron nodded, breathing through his lips as Robert pulled back, his hands still holding gently onto Aaron’s elbows.

‘I was angry and bitter about losing Mum, about my Dad, and I projected so much of that anger onto him, so the worst of it was that I didn’t just lose my mum, I lost my brother too. I lost myself.’

‘And then I met you, ...but it took time, you know? And when I got shot, I had time, not to mention a lot of motivation to finally work it all out.’

Aaron raised a hand and stroked Robert’s wrist.

‘It was why I wanted to come here with you before, remember? When we got back together, and then Liv needed you, needed us.’

‘I’m glad we still came, I glad you told me.’

‘Anyway, I just I wanted to bring you here to put some sort of full stop on it, before we married, that’s it. Sometimes I wish I could go back. Everything could have been so different.’

‘Listen to me, will ya? You know I’m not good at finding the right words but who you are, is who I love, and that means all of you, there isn’t a line, Robert - that churned up fifteen-year-old kid, that was you, so I love him, I care about him, because without him, I wouldn’t have you.’

‘I love you so much.’

 

‘Being bi, do you think your mum knew something, then?’

‘No.’

‘Would you have told her?’

‘I don’t know.’

 

On the way back from Corbera, Arnie took them on a detour to the Ebro delta, the car bouncing over potholes as the road became a track, the track vanishing, until they were driving on coarse white sand scattered with samphire.

‘Why are we here?’ Robert asked when he parked up.

They were a million miles away from anywhere with the sea just a slither of silver on their left.

‘Follow me.’

Arnie walked quickly leaving footprints in the sand, before disappearing around a wall of marram grass.

‘Alright, Robinson Crusoe! I’d rather be getting back!’

When he rounded the corner, he halted in his tracks. In front of him a lagoon of still jade water, no longer the river, but not the sea either.

And then he blinked because Arnie was undressing, squinting into the sun, arms reaching behind him, pulling his t-shirt off over his head. He tugged off his canvas shoes, then slipped two hands into his shorts and underpants, pulling them down over his hips and shaking them from his ankles in the sand.

Robert stared, transfixed, his breath stolen away by the beauty of him.

And Arnie smiled widely, stepping backwards towards the pool.

‘Come in, Robert! Is beautiful! The water! Is beautiful!’

 

‘When we got back, I told Gran I was ready to go home. So, I called my Dad, and he booked me a ticket. But before I left, of course she had one last thing she wanted me to do.’

They drove back to the field where not so many days before Robert had planted the potatoes. He got out of the car and stood by his Gran’s side looking out over the plot. Everywhere he looked young green shoots had pushed their way through the bare earth, tender leaves turning hopefully towards the morning sun.

Robert coloured, feeling a ridiculous sense of achievement. He waited to hear something from his Gran, some acknowledgement that he hadn’t messed this up, at least.

‘Time to earth up,’ she said, gesturing to a spade. ‘Stops them from growing for a while, but it makes the roots grow deeper, and it takes longer, but it’s worth it, and in the end, there’ll be a better crop,’

So, Robert set to work again, burying the green shoots with soil, until there was no sign of them left.

 

‘And then I went back.’

 

‘So, will you take me to these places, where was it... _Corbera,_ the house where you stayed, the potato plot? if you want, I mean.’

‘I’d like that, but first I think there’s someone we need to visit, don’t you?’

‘Wha…? She’s not…?’

‘My Gran, yeah.’

‘But you never told me!’

‘I know, I’m sorry. I got the address from Diane, she’s in some sort of sheltered home or something. She’ll hate that.’

‘And, what do we say?’

‘About what?’

‘Us?’

‘That we’re married, making it legal. What else would we say?’

‘And you won’t be disappointed if she, you know, disapproves?’

‘No. No one else’s opinion counts. You know that.’

 

‘Jack?’

‘It’s Robert.’

‘Who’s that with ya? Is that Andy?’

‘No, Gran, this is Aaron.’

‘Another Dingle! Bad enough when Andy was with that Debbie, now you? All thugs and criminals.’

Robert raised his eyebrows at Aaron, clearly amused, as he stood near the door, hands in his pockets.

‘Come closer,’ Annie said.

‘He’s a bonny lad, I’ll give you that. Needs a shave, though. Sit down then and look as if you’re stopping. And you, make yourself useful and put the kettle on. I’m parched.’

She followed Robert with her eyes.

‘He was a troubled child. Those looks were a burden. Thinks he’s god’s gift, like his father. Hope you know what you’re taking on?’

‘I think I know by now.’

She looked down at Aaron’s wedding ring.

‘So, you’re one of them, too, are you? Those homosexuals?’

From the kitchen area, Robert mouthed a ‘sorry,’ and Aaron winked, reassuring him that it was alright. As always, she had eyes everywhere and raised her voice to Robert again.

‘We thought it was a phase, you know. I told your dad, get over it, bull calves and tups, I told him, they all have a go at it. And he was fretting about money, and Sarah, at the time, so I told him not to tell her ‘bout it. But, then, it turns out it wasn’t a phase, was it?’

‘I saw the way you looked at that lad, what was his name? The Spanish boy with the nice eyes, so when you’d done with planting I asked him to come back, I thought maybe you’d hit it off with him and tell us straight. Thought that was what was troubling you. That you’d be alright if you got it off your chest.’

‘But then you went back and stole Andy’s girl, and made another mess. And years later you married her.’ She gestured to a photograph on the dresser, Robert and Chrissie from their wedding day. ‘She’s gone now though, Diane told me, God rest her soul.’

Robert came over with a tray of tea and placed it on the table, then sat down on the other side of her.

‘I bought you a photograph. Here. That’s me and Aaron, and that’s Liv, our sister, and Seb, your great grandson.’

‘Put it down there will you.’

She turned back to Aaron.

‘You love him, then?’

‘I do.’

‘Look after him, won’t you, son?’

‘Oh, and Robert, remember those potatoes? They were a late crop, but they were the best we ever had.’

 

‘Did I get that wrong, or did your Gran just compare you to a root vegetable?’

‘You’ll shut up if you know what’s good for you.’

‘So, what we going to do now?’

‘Well, there’s this bar I know, if it’s still there. I thought we could play darts? If you fancy it?’

‘You know you always lose, and then you sulk.’

‘Yeah, that’s the idea, and then you make it up to me, so it’s worth it, isn’t it?’

‘You know if you wanted to play darts, we could have just gone to Skipton or somewhere…’

Back at the hotel, they had sex, or call it what it was, they made love, with lots of foreplay, the way Aaron liked it best.

Robert lay on his chest between Aaron’s lifted thighs, the fingers of one hand kneading slowly at the muscle of his arse cheek against the sheet, while his lips slid up and down over him, savouring his straining cock.

Aaron watching on his elbows, grunting with appreciation, feeling the wetness from Robert’s mouth trickle down, followed soon enough by Robert’s tongue, just as he’d wanted. He lay back, chin raised and closed his eyes.

He kept them closed, just wetting his lips in anticipation when Robert shifted forwards on his knuckles.

He opened them when he heard Robert start to hum. Definitely a tune.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Singing.’

_‘What?’_

‘Guide me o thou Great Redeemer.’

_‘What? Now?’_

‘Just… guide me?’ Robert grinned.

So, Aaron reached a hand down, and did just that.

 

‘Put that up there will you, not there, over there, where I can see it!’

‘Nice picture! Who are they? Family?’

‘That’s right. My grandson, and his husband, and their children.’

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Corbera was destroyed by artillery and air-raids during the Battle of the Ebro in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War.


End file.
